


E Pur Si Muove

by holly_violet



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Astronomy, Fluff, Footnotes, Galileo Galilei - Freeform, Historical References, Italy, M/M, Meta, Mild Angst, Other, Queen (Band) References, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Stargazing, Stars, because of course, crowley is wearing some dumb shit in the first part of this, historically accurate clothing, if i'm talking about galileo they're GOING to sing bohemian rhapsody, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 19:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20140453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holly_violet/pseuds/holly_violet
Summary: Arcetri, Italy. 1642.On a clear Wednesday morning in January, Galileo Galilei dies.





	E Pur Si Muove

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a quote from Galileo. it means 'and yet it moves'.
> 
> in the first part of this fic, Crowley is wearing [this](https://www.historic-uk.com/assets/Images/mensclothing1650.jpg?1390900030) if you're interested! and you should be it's silly
> 
> this was HEAVILY inspired by Sleeping at Last's Jupiter, and also my Galileo wikipedia binge.
> 
> if you click on the footnotes, there's a link which takes you back to the text once you've read the footnote! How neat is that!

**Arcetri, Italy. 1642.**

On a clear Wednesday morning in January, Galileo Galilei dies, and Aziraphale sees Crowley sitting on a hill, long legs laid out on the grass, his back pressed to a tree. Aziraphale hasn’t seen him in a few rather lonely years, their arrangement not having been called into use, but he hasn’t changed a great amount. He’s wearing his hair long and curly, but he’s forgone the pointy beard which is so unpleasantly fashionable. His black breeches hang loose to the knee, and he’s pulled his equally dark jacket around himself against the chill. Aziraphale wants to fuss, to tell him that he’ll get grass on his (probably heinously expensive, knowing Italy) trousers and mud on his shiny shoes, but he doesn’t feel it would be proper, so he keeps his mouth shut and walks over to him.

“Hi, angel. Long time, no see,” Crowley says, his voice casual. Aziraphale decided not to point out that they’ve spent far longer apart than this, especially since he’d also been feeling the lack. “You hear about Galileo?”

“I did. So sad.” Aziraphale clears his throat, pauses. Crowley pats the ground next to him, and Aziraphale performs a small miracle to keep his white clothing clean before he sits. “Did you know him?”

“Not well. I kept an eye on him, though— that _ heliocentrism _business warranted some quiet observation. Still never really figured out Upstairs’ actual policy on that.”

“I don’t know, either. Catholics seemed rather adamant about it, though.”

“Yeah. And he got the hang of looking at the stars, and the planets, too. Which was nice for me. Finally getting my hard work appreciated.”

Aziraphale had never really asked about Crowley’s time in Heaven. He doesn’t remember how important Crowley was back then, what role he played, what his name was. It’s likely that his memory was wiped when Crowley Fell, but he doesn’t want to ask. That would feel too much like pouring salt into an open wound, even after so long.

What he does want to know about is the business with the stars. Crowley has always been fixated on them, often influencing or befriending (and/or sleeping with) the most promising astronomers—Copernicus, Azophi, Da Vinci, among others. He wouldn’t interfere with their work, or try and give them a hand, just simply watch as they discovered new things, charted new frontiers.

Crowley has hinted a couple of times that he had a hand in the creation of the stars, way back when.  That would mean he was _ important _ in a way that Aziraphale cannot stress enough, which makes him a little starstruck [1] despite having known Crowley for so many thousands of years.

“You know,” he finally asks, “you never elaborate on that. Would you mind—I mean, would you ever tell me about the stars? After all, if you made them, you’re the world’s leading expert, and I always love to learn something new.”

Crowley pauses for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

And he does. He speaks of standing at the very beginning of the universe and looking out at the infinite darkness. He speaks of how that gaping void was so terrifying and vast that the first and only thing he thought to make was a star, and then another, and then another. He speaks of how he shaped galaxies and nebulas, how the Milky Way was one of the last before he stepped back for a moment and took a break, and in that short break he had Fallen and never been able to finish.

Aziraphale asks about supernovas, or _ guest stars _as some of the humans had been calling them. He asks about shooting stars and meteorites, and the rings of Saturn, and Crowley tells him.

Then, Crowley’s brief history of the universe drifts to Galileo.

“Did you know he was a pious Catholic, too? He believed in God, even as the Pope and all of them tried to have him called a heretic. I heard they’re not going to bury him in the main body of the Basilica, because he _ questioned things. _ But he still loved God, right to the end. I don’t—I don’t know how he did it.”

And oh, Aziraphale understands now.

Aziraphale speaks carefully. “Well, I suppose once you’ve had a set of beliefs for long enough, it would be hard to shake them. But keeping faith even when the people in your community are rejecting your ideas would have taken some admirable resilience.” He glances up, folds his hands in his lap. “I may have to speak to someone upstairs on the heliocentrism matter, but I would say that kind of devotion would win you some respect, in Her view. If that helps.”

Crowley makes some kind of noise, which Aziraphale chooses to interpret as ‘ _ okay, yes, that makes sense’ _ rather than ‘ _ that was very insensitive of you, Aziraphale, go away please __[2]. _

It’s then that Crowley starts to shiver. After all, the grass is wet with dew and they’re sitting in the shade and it’s winter, and Crowley runs cold by nature, even in his ridiculous fashionable velvet getup.

Aziraphale shoots him a concerned look, stands up, brushes off any stray blades of grass or leaves. He offers Crowley a hand up. “Come on, dear boy, you’re freezing. Do you have anything you need to do today?”

Crowley stands, not taking Aziraphale’s hand, and cards his fingers through his hair. “No. Just kind of want to…” He gestures vaguely toward the town centre.

“Get drunk? Have some late breakfast?”

“Sounds good to me.”

**The South Downs, England. 2020.**

Aziraphale has been trying to pat his hair down into some semblance of tidiness for the last hour, and not once has he succeeded. He and Crowley had spent a lovely day wandering around the windswept hills looking at some simply adorable cottages, followed by a tasty dinner and a bottle of wine, drunk sat on the grass, looking up at the stars.

“Y’know, this is one of those dark sky reserves,” Crowley says, laying back on the picnic blanket Aziraphale had remembered to bring. “Like, there’s no streetlights, so you can see everything. Especially with tonight being so clear.”

“Mm. Gorgeous weather, for the season.”

“Almost _ miraculously _clear.”

“Oh, and just for us,” Aziraphale says, feigning surprised contentment, as if he had nothing to do with it.

Crowley points out one or two constellations to him, some of the brightest stars in the sky, important navigational points.

“Can you show me where Alpha Centauri actually is?” Aziraphale says. He knows, already, after all he has spent six thousand years among books and scholars, but he wants Crowley to show him. “Since you were planning to somehow get us there.”

Crowley doesn’t dignify Aziraphale’s comment on his emotionally-fueled declaration of a hideout in another star system with a response, but points with a long, bony finger toward one of the brightest stars in the sky.

“Just there. Beta Centauri is next to it. See?”

“No. Can you—” Aziraphale lifts his own hand, still pretending.

Crowley huffs a sigh, shifts closer to take Aziraphale’s hand in his, pointing him toward the star, clearly hiding a smile.

“Ah— yes. I see it now.” Aziraphale is stifling a giggle, having achieved exactly the intended effect. He turns his head, placing the hand that isn’t still being held on Crowley’s face and kissing him, ever-so-gently. Crowley leans into it, as always, tugging Aziraphale’s lower lip between his, only pulling away after a few quiet seconds to take a breath[3]. “Thank you for showing me,” Aziraphale says, sounding very pleased with himself.

“You_ knew. _ You just wanted me to hold your hand.”

“I suppose you’re right. But I don’t hear you complaining.”

An hour or so later in the Bentley, as Crowley drives the two of them back to the bookshop in Soho, Aziraphale is _ still _fussing with his hair.

“Oh, leave it. We’re going to bed when we get home, anyway.”

“Yes, I _ know, _but it’s got grass in it,” Aziraphale says, “How didn’t this happen to yours? You have far more hair than I do.”

“I didn’t put my head directly on the ground. Because I didn’t want damp grass that a sheep had probably trod on anywhere near me.”

“Point taken. I think it’s all gone.”

The car is warm, pleasantly so. The windows are a little steamed up, thanks to the freezing cold outside, but that only makes it cozier. Crowley has been singing along to Best of Queen in a way he would normally only behave alone, and Aziraphale has been humming off-key to the parts he’s absorbed from simply being around Crowley.

Right now, they’re well into a rendition of _ Bohemian Rhapsody _, and Aziraphale has mostly just laughed the whole time.

The song reaches the part just before the ‘_ weird opera bit’ _, as Aziraphale has so often called it, and Crowley stops singing abruptly.

“Wait, hold on, angel, try to hit the high note.” Crowley is cackling at even the _ thought. _

“No. Not a chance. I’m not even trying.”

“For me?”

“Oh, alright—” He takes a deep breath. “Gali_ leo!” _

It’s not even close, and both of their shoulders are shaking with laughter, and as he sits back in his seat with a sigh and a chuckle and entertains himself watching Crowley sing _ Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy[4] _ as they weave through the seats of Soho, he absently thinks of a chilly day in Italy, and wonders what the real Galileo would think of them now.

He doesn’t come to an answer. After all, Aziraphale has much more pleasant things to think about. 

And to be fair, he doesn’t tend to philosophise much while he’s holding Crowley’s hand.

footnotes:  
1 Haha. Starstruck. See what I did there. [return to text]

2 Aziraphale knew, even then, in some part of him, that Crowley would never tell him to go. They valued what time they had together too much. He also knew that he would never say that to Crowley, either.[return to text]

3 Crowley only ever needs to breathe when he’s kissing Aziraphale. Otherwise it’s very possible that he might discorporate from the sheer ‘oh holy shit, I get to do this’ of it. [return to text]

4 The only place Aziraphale always, unfailingly joins in singing is for the chorus of Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy and the lines ‘dining at the Ritz, we’ll meet at nine’ and ‘take me back to yours, that will be fine’. It’s something of a ritual.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! i had a lil EPIPHANY about the galileo-crowley parallel and talked about it with my very bewildered dad for like half an hour
> 
> my tumblr is [galaxy-houseplants](https://galaxy-houseplants.tumblr.com) if ur interested!
> 
> kudos and comments fuel me! thanks for reading!


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